"Perfect love casteth out fear." Pray to God with all your heart and strength for Perfect Love. Absolute perfection is not a quality associated with the present dark time of weakness and struggle and probation; but He may endow you with something very close to perfect love if you seek and desire it enough: seek and desire it all the time with all your being. The question of whether perfection in anything in this weak day -- the question of how close to perfection we can, and are required, to come -- is not a profitable or practical question. What is pre-eminently practical is how hard we must strive, and how earnestly we must desire. How close we get is not our present concern. God will measure us in the scale of what He has given us, and what He has laid upon us. For each, the scale is different, and known only to Him. How close we try and desire to get to perfection -- in the irresistible and burning compulsion of love -- is supremely important. It is ALL-important. In our striving toward the attainment and fulfillment of Perfect Love, how repeatedly we in weakness stumble and fail is not of great seriousness (though it can never be shrugged off as unimportant). Perfect Love is perfect oneness with God in all we do and in all we are. It is an ultimate attainment. It is the Divine Promise of the Memorial Name. All life, and hope and peace and joy lie within the boundaries of total, single-minded dedication to it. Outside it, all is the blackness of eternal night. In anything you do, keep continuously in mind the need for Divine guidance and help in prayer: or else -- no matter how sincere the effort or "sanctified" the deed -- the result will be of the flesh. Without God held constantly in mind, and without His constant help and direction, no activity will rise above the flesh.

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